Mysterious Ways

One of the things I'll be doing after my exit from the military is a paid ministry position of some kind. Since Mrs. Hammer and I were checking out the area this past Sunday/Monday, I had arranged to meet with two ministers to do some networking.

The first was the father of a friend of mine. He happens to be the pastor of a 'Spirit-Filled' church, which means they do stuff I'm not particularly comfortable with. However, a servant of Christ is a brother in Christ, so we met over a scrumptious bacon, egg & cheese bagel (courtesy of Ronnie Mac) to rap a bit. I made a classicly inept attempt to introduce myself, my experience and my situation. Thankfully, he liked to talk, so he jumped in at a pause and ran most of the rest of it. While I wouldn't really be interested in serving at his church, he is a part of the local ministerial association, and I gave him my resume - hence, he could give it to someone as the Spirit leads him.

While that was a good visit, and went basically as I expected, the other visit was surprising. I and the rest of the Team had been to one of the local churches that runs a private school. We had decided to send our oldest boy there, and were impressed with the service, which had an all-too-rare combination of total worship participation and Bible-based, not-watered-down preaching. I had called that church earlier in the week to schedule an appointment with the head pastor, and the person who made the appointment for me informed me that 'the staff is top-heavy', and not to expect a job there. I really didn't mind, as my intent was the same as the morning meeting - to introduce myself and allow that pastor to recommend me to a church that might need my service.

That's not how it went. We arrived, and the pastor asked me to tell him about Team Hammer. I did a Reader's Digest version, gave him my resume, and then he asked some questions...to Mrs. Hammer, about me. She was not prepared, but answered truthfully, despite being flabbergasted. The pastor asked about loyalty - he had fired seven staff members a year past who led a sort of mutiny in the church while he was gone. Hs point was that he expected his staff to execute his guidance, not come up with their own vision for the church. While he didn't mean that they had no say in their ministries, he still gave the overall direction. Gee, doesn't that sound familiar...the Army, maybe?

He then went on to describe how the singles minister was expected to depart in May, but that they would not know for another ten days or so. He gave us a tour of some of the facilities, and introduced us to people as "might be coming onto staff". I was blown away. While I still do not know if that is where we will serve, I arrived thinking that I knew what was going on, and that no job was available. Guess what - even when you think you have it all together, there is only One who does...He moves in mysterious ways, indeed.